The SAT Subject Test in United States History was the name of a one-hour

multiple choice Multiple choice (MC), objective response or MCQ (for multiple choice question) is a form of an objective assessment in which respondents are asked to select only the correct answer from the choices offered as a list. The multiple choice format i ...

test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film) ...

given on

United States History The history of the present-day United States began in roughly 15,000 BC with the arrival of Peopling of the Americas, the first people in the Americas. In the late 15th century, European colonization of the Americas, European colonization beg ...

The College Board The College Board, styled as CollegeBoard, is an American not-for-profit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an asso ...

. A

student A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution, or more generally, a person who takes a special interest in a subject. In the United Kingdom and most The Commonwealth, commonwealth countries, a "student" attends ...

chose whether to take the test depending upon

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

entrance requirements for the schools in which the student is planning to apply. Until 1994, the

SAT Subject Tests SAT Subject Tests were a set of multiple-choice standardized tests given by The College Board on individual topics, typically taken to improve a student's credentials for college admissions in the United States. For most of their existence, from ...

were known as Achievement Tests; and from 1995 until January 2005, they were known as SAT IIs. Of all SAT subject tests, United States History was taken the second most, with 119,903 administrations in 2009. On January 19, 2021,

the College Board The College Board, styled as CollegeBoard, is an American not-for-profit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an asso ...

discontinued all

SAT Subject tests SAT Subject Tests were a set of multiple-choice standardized tests given by The College Board on individual topics, typically taken to improve a student's credentials for college admissions in the United States. For most of their existence, from ...

, including the SAT Subject Test in United States History. This was effective immediately in the United States, and the tests were to be phased out by the following summer for international students. This was done as a response to changes in college admissions due to the

impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education The COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 pandemic affected educational systems across the world. The number of cases of COVID-19 started to rise in March 2020 and many educational institutions and University, universities underwent closure. Most coun ...

Format

The test had 90 multiple choice questions that were to be answered in one hour. All questions had five answer choices. Students' scores were based entirely on their performance in answering the multiple choice questions. The questions covered a broad range of topics. Approximately 31–35% of questions focused on

political history Political history is the narrative and survey of political events, ideas, movements, organs of government, voters, parties and leaders. It is closely related to other fields of history, including diplomatic history, constitutional history, soci ...

, 13–17% focused on

economic history Economic history is the study of history using methodological tools from economics or with a special attention to economic phenomena. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the Applied economics ...

, 20–24% focused on

social history Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. Historians who write social history are called social historians. Social history came to prominence in the 1960s, spreading f ...

, 13–17% focused on

intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...

and

cultural history Cultural history records and interprets past events involving human beings through the social, cultural, and political milieu of or relating to the arts and manners that a group favors. Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) helped found cultural history ...

, and 13–17% focused on

foreign policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

. The questions also varied with respect to time period; approximately 20% focused on the period of the

Pre-Columbian era In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

to 1789, 40% focused on the period between 1790 and 1898, and 40% focused on the period between 1899 and the present day.

Scoring

For each of the multiple choice questions, students received 1 point for every correct answer, lost of a point for each incorrect answer, and received 0 points for questions left blank. This created a ''raw score'', which was then converted into a ''scaled score''. The conversion between these numbers varied depending on the difficulty of a particular test administration. The ''scaled score'' was the only score reported to either students or colleges and ranges from 200 to 800, with 800 being the best possible score. The

mean A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

and

standard deviation In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the amount of variation of the values of a variable about its Expected value, mean. A low standard Deviation (statistics), deviation indicates that the values tend to be close to the mean ( ...

of the test scores in 2009 were 599 and 115, respectively.

Preparation

The College Board suggested as preparation for the test a year-long course in United States History at the college preparatory level. The test required understanding of historical data and concepts,

cause and effect Causality is an influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cause is at least partly responsible for the effect, ...

relationships,

geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

, and the ability to effectively synthesize and interpret data from charts, maps, and other

visual media Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises bot ...

. However, most questions from this test were derived from/similar to the

AP US History Advanced Placement (AP) United States History (also known as AP U.S. History, APUSH (), or AP U.S.) is a college-level course and examination offered by College Board as part of the Advanced Placement Program. Course The AP U.S. History course i ...

Multiple Choice questions from 2014 and earlier (the 2015 exam has been revised). By taking an AP class, IB History of the Americas, or a class with similar rigor, the chances at doing well on this test were much improved.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sat Subject Test In United States History

History education in the United States

Format

Scoring

Preparation

See also

References